Does the sound of laughter drive you up a wall? Are you similar to the Grinch not being able to listen to all the happy Whos in Whoville? If the answer is yes than I have a new product for you! I’m exaggerating a bit, but the product is called Kill The Cann. The purpose of Kill The Cann is to eliminate that annoying, fake, canned laughter on TV. Finally! Where was this in the 80s and 90s? Support the new Kickstarter here:

When you think about it, it does seem kind of strange that there are laugh tracks over your favorite TV shows. It’s almost like they don’t trust the audience to know what’s a joke and what is not. It’s a little condescending if you ask me.

Why This Product Was Created

“For some of us, it is really annoying! For viewers, canned laughter can distort the dialogue, make it hard to hear clearly or understand, or simply insert laughs in places that you don’t think are funny. Some of us really don’t like laugh tracks and wondered if a device could be built to remove the canned laughter. As scientists with expertise in image and audio signal processing, as well as speech and vocalization analysis, we were all intrigued. Undesirable canned laughter is definitely a “sound” issue – which is right up our alley. A survey of others revealed this was a common issue. Over 80% of our survey audience replied that laugh tracks on television shows annoyed them. Armed with that insight, we decided to design a simple do-it-yourself solution that anyone could use with his/her own TV.”

What Product Does

“Kill The Cann (KTC) reduces or removes laughter from the television audio using our?advanced signal processing algorithm?(patent pending). Our design works with existing HDMI streaming devices like your DVR and Chromecast, by simply connecting the HDMI cable of your DVR to?our device and then connecting it to your TV. It is very simple to use. Just turn on the switch to suppress laughter in any show you are watching. The available audio tracks of a multi-track television program are processed to remove or reduce certain components of the program, especially audience sounds. This applies to any program which is supplied with several audio channels, whether provided by cable, DVD, Internet streaming, or otherwise.”

How It Works

“A single, multi-channel electronic audio stream enters from the left and is split into single channels. ?The channels are collectively processed in block P above and reassembled into a multi-channel audio stream, which is output on the right. In the middle, the audio streams are filtered in several ways to isolate the audience sounds to be removed or reduced. To understand what we do, you need to know how audio engineers assemble the sounds of a sitcom. Generally, music/special effects get a left and right channel, the left and right sides of the audience get left and right channels, and one channel is dedicated to low-frequency sounds (bass). Finally, the performers get one channel – which they share with the middle of the audience. In our processing, each of the audience tracks and the performance track get special attention.”

When I saw this product, it got me thinking where was this product in the 80s and 90s at the height of sit com popularity? How much more enjoyable would Friends or Seinfeld be without the annoying laugh tracks? I think audiences today are much more sophisticated, laugh tracks are not even close to being necessary. If you are re-watching Friends episodes on Netflix just think how useful this product would be? Please consider supporting Kill the Cann’s $54,000 goal on Kickstarter today.